


your own monsters, lurking

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Episode: s10e21 Mr. Scratch, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, there are some cases and fears even Aaron Hotchner can't outrun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 13:05:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: “Listen.” Scratch says and leans down, breath against his ear, and Hotch can feel his smile curl.“One, two, three, Aaron. Here’s how it’s going to be.”Or, Mr. Scratch and the aftermath.





	your own monsters, lurking

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! Let's kick 2018 off with some psychological violence and torture aftermath! This year I'm going to try my best to not completely fall out of other fandoms when I fall into a new one, but first this fic! This Episode is what got be hooked, but other than this I haven't seen passed season 3 so sorry if any of these characters are no longer with us? (This show kills off way too many people.)
> 
> Anyway, I own nothing. Hope you enjoy!

_Sometimes_  
_you have to march all the way to Galilee_  
_or the literal foot of God himself before you realize_

 _you’ve already passed the place where_  
_you were supposed to die._

_\- Kaveh Akbar_

.

It starts like this.

Scratch smiles from above him, says, “You were right about one thing, Aaron. They are coming.” His face twisting, coming in and out of focus with the room around them.

“They’ll kill you.” Hotch says, the world swimming, drowning and falling, trying to keep the world on his shoulders steady where it’s always been trying to crush him.

Scratch is still smiling when he says, “Are you sure?”

The front door opens.

The front door doesn’t move.

His phone rings, dies, rings again. There are gunshots and blood, and then there aren’t.

Screams and crying and watching his friends die around them, feeling their blood on his hands.

Darkness and then its absence, emptiness besides the two of them.

Scratch’s laughter echoing through both ends.

Hotch presses his eyes closed.

.

“What the hell.” Morgan says to him, all of them rushing him out of the house and to the paramedics, the first words he hears back with his team, and he can’t untense his shoulders.

Prentiss and JJ are saying something, offering comforting words and reassurance- but they’re not bleeding, and he’s not sure if that’s right. No gunshots, no injuries. No blood on Morgan’s chest, Prentiss is still in one piece, and Reid’s head isn’t painted on the wall inside. They’re all standing around him instead, as if trying to protect him, as if the threat isn’t the exact thing they’re encircling.

He tries his best not to think.

He watches as they load Scratch in to the recently arrived Police car, and tries not to get too distracted by Scratch’s smiling face and the lack of blood coating it as he’s driven away.

He closes his eyes, runs his hands over his face, tries to see anything other than red and his team dying over and over again - Reid falling, Prentiss screaming, JJ crying - tries to take a breath.

“Man, Hotch” Morgan says, looking in Hotch’s direction but not exactly at him, and shaking his head, “what did that guy say to you?”

A spotless room and then blood and dead friends who are more like family, screams and crying and laughter all around and pressing in, last words and red on his hands. _Always red, always and forever and red-_

Hotch clenches his eyes shut, and brings his hands back up to his face, tries to remember and comes up blank.

“I don’t know.”

.

Rossi drives him home.

He drops him off with a smile, eyes still shadowing concern when he says, “Get some sleep, Hotch.”

And he wants to smile back. To give some sort of sign or message that he’ll be fine, and that he isn’t a danger to himself or his son two doors down.

(Even though he knows he’d follow one of the last victims in their final act, that he’d kill himself before he let anything like that happen.)

Hotch musters up a slight grin, too tight at the edges and nods, says, “Thanks. You too, Dave.”

He shuts the door.

He watches until the SUV is out of sight, and counts to five before he walks back into the house.

.

_“Listen.” Scratch says and leans down, breath against his ear, and Hotch can feel his smile curl._

_“One, two, three, Aaron. Here’s how it’s going to be.”_

.

He doesn’t sleep much that night, but he thinks it’s to be expected.

He’s seen a lot of horrors throughout the years, but finding the horrors he witnessed firsthand - personal and painful and so shocking that he couldn’t breathe - never even happened is new.

Thinking about how they almost died by his hand, how he almost killed his team, one by one as they walked in to save him, is enough to keep him awake.

He wonders if it’s possible for the dead to haunt the living even if they didn’t really die.

.

“A psych evaluation.” Hotch repeats. It’s early, he’s tired, and at the moment not too good with patience.

Prentiss nods from the edge of his office, lips pressed tight and hands folded in front of her. Stoic and calm but worry still lingering in her eyes.

“Yes, sir.” She says, “I was informed that it would be a good idea.”

 _We want to make sure whatever that monster did to them isn’t in you,_ goes unsaid, but he hears it anyway.

“Fine. Yes, then.” He says, short, wondering if the bags beneath his eyes have become more prominent during their meeting or if his thoughts have just reinforced their weight.

“I’ll send you the number to schedule your meeting,” Prentiss says, smiling softly before walking out.

.

He dreams, and there’s a small white room with blood on the walls.

Almost painted on, arranged in a precise way, caked and splattered. A backdrop for monsters parading as men, every inch of white stained red.

There’s a glint of silver besides the red, a knife in his hand. Laughter echoes through the room.

He turns slightly and sees Reid’s head splattered across the wall. Morgan gasping next to him.

When he wakes, it’s to a throbbing headache and silent scream.

He doesn’t tell the psychologist about any of it.

.

_“One,” Scratch says, “listen now, Aaron.”_

_._

He passes his Psych evaluation with a near perfect score.

“Congratulations, sir,” Garcia says when he gets the results, and he can hear her smiling through the speaker in his phone, “It’s nice to have you back.”

Hotch half smiles, wants to say _i never left_ , but bites his tongue instead and says, “It’s good to be back,” her delighted laughter still ringing as he hangs up the phone.

.

The next time he sleeps, because it is not something the BAU often allows and he’s not foolish enough to sleep on the jet, he dreams and this time the glint of silver is more prominent now. Not bolder than the red but more meaningful: more attractive in the moment.

When he wakes, he finds his hand brushing the secretly stored metal beside his bed.

He doesn’t sleep the rest of the night, doesn’t allow himself to. The next morning, he makes a point to casually asks JJ if Jack could spend the night with Henry at her house over morning coffee.

He’s pretty sure she knows what he’s doing before he even starts, but she lets him anyway. He's grateful for it.

“He’s been asking about it, and I’ve been, well-,” Hotch shrugs and JJ smiles.

“Yeah, I know. Henry would love that. I’ll call Will about it later.”

He smiles and nods, says, “Thanks, JJ.”

JJ laughs back, “Don’t thank me. Thank Will.”

.

The office is never quiet. It’s something each agent has to get and grow used to.

People are always rushing by, racing to catch a jet, run a plate, track a phone or find car. It’s constant noise, and one that often fades into the background, but sometimes it’s too much.

Too much light, too much noise, too many people and too much tragedy all crowded into one small space: too much missing for as much as the office possesses.

His computer screen is too bright, and the latest file is too vague in every way, except for the details of the death, and when it finally comes to the place where he thinks the world may be falling into himself he closes his eyes. He takes a breath, breathes, holds his arms up by his elbows and allows his head to fall into his hands.

“Sorry to interrupt you, sir.” Reid’s voice interjects suddenly, concern bleeding into each of the words in the way he’s been taught to let it through the years on the team, honing emotion for the sake of information.

(And that’s the theory he chooses to believe. Because Hotch doesn’t want to consider the alternative, that he looks bad enough that Reid’s actual concern has become warranted.)

Hotch runs his hands up and through his hair and straightens, folds his hands together: fingers overlapping, the epitome of professional. Ticks covering every trace of doubt, every inch of the feared impersonator, radiating professionalism, comfortable isolation, a distant weariness.

“Nothing to interrupt,” he says, smooth, calm, allows a smile to pull at his lips. “What do you need?”

“Briefing in five.” Reid says, nodding to reassure himself, eyes scanning, “New case.”

Hotch nods, says, “I’ll be there in two,” waits for Spencer to leave. He steps in, instead.

“Hotch, if you need anything-” Reid starts, and Hotch can see the true concern in his eyes buried beneath the tragedies and curiosity and too much knowledge for a boy who can never forget, so he nods.

Hotch allows the smile to spread a little further, tries not to remember how Reid’s head looked painted across a wall, thinks _do you know you would have been the first one I shot?,_ bites the words down and says, “I’m fine, Reid. Truly.”

When Reid walks out of his office, he tries to ignore the whisper in the back of his mind.

( _Liar_ )

.

_“Two, Aaron. I really do hope you are paying attention.”_

.

The new case is a kidnapping and possible murder, but is nearby Washington: close enough where they don’t have to take the jet. He rides up with Reid, and neither of them mention the past week so it’s a comfort of sorts.

The new Unsub has yet to set a pattern, one they can detect yet anyway, and each victim differs from the next.

They solve it in three days, capture the Unsub, and find two of the victims: alive.

Rossi and Morgan call it a victory.

Hotch drives a sleeping Spencer back to the BAU and tries to pretend the world doesn’t feel off.

.

Will picks up both the boys from school and takes them home for the sleepover, Jack having packed extra sleepover supplies in his backpack beforehand. JJ calls to tell him she’s home with Will and the boys.

“Have a good night, Hotch,” She says through the phone, and he tries to overlook the concern and misplaced pity in her voice buried within the sincerity.

“You too,” he replies. When the call ends, he closes his eyes and lets the world fall.

.

Belatedly, Hotch wonders if any of them noticed how Scratch was already calling himself a monster - akin to the same things he recreated - long before they did. Formative years spent self-disciplining and punishing trying to make up for the past.

He’s pretty sure Reid caught it. Again, he wonders if he should worry about that.

And what does that make them, for stopping him? Heroes or better monsters?

It’s not a road he wants to go down, one Rossi has told him too many times not to go down, so he leaves it. For now.

He spends the time ensuring better security and safety measures for his gun and weapons instead.

.

Hotch spends his night alone. He doesn’t eat mostly because he forgets to, skims over some files, reads an article Reid sent him, and glances over some pictures Garcia tagged for him.

When he remembers to check the clock, it reads nearly twelve in the morning, too late to call Jack if he’d even wanted to, and he can’t bring himself to sleep. He settles for a shower instead.

He lets steam cover every inch of the bathroom, cover the mirror and nearly blind him as an almost fog invades the room. He locks each door and tries them to make sure they’ll stay.

He lets the water run down his back, runs his hands over his face and through his hair. Opens his eyes every few minutes to reassure himself that it’s water, not blood.

That this, now, is real. That his team, friends, family, are alive. Jack is safe. Scratch is gone. A million cases just like this: some worse, some better. He didn’t kill them. Scratch had a hand on his mind, a gun in Hotch’s hand, but he didn’t kill them.

Darkness and blood on the walls, and his team screaming for him as they die right before him.

He opens his eyes again. Makes sure the water is water and clear. 

No one is dead. 

_ No one is dead. _

Hotch closes his eyes. Takes a breath.

Tries his best to let the world fade into the background.

 

.

_“Three. Oh, Aaron. This really is going to be so much fun.”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Comments and Kudos are much appreciated!


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